Surface illumination systems have a wide variety of applications. They can, for example, serve as illuminants in lamps or design systems. In particular, surface illumination systems can be used to backlight displays such as liquid crystal displays (LCDs).
Known from U.S. Pat. No. 6,646,367 B2 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,241,358 B1, for example, are surface illumination systems that can be constructed in cascade form from a plurality of light guides with primary radiation sources coupled into each of them laterally. However, the documents do not disclose any assembly concepts for making surface illumination systems of this kind.